JON

Jon was kneeling in the snow. He grasped at the dagger Bowen had planted and tore it free of his stomach. The chill of winter breezed over his steaming wounds. "Ghost," Jon meant to call but could only wheeze as blood bloomed passed his lips. Jon gasped as a third knife took him from behind in between the shoulder blades. The cold snow rushed to meet his face. Jon couldn't feel the rest of the oncoming stabs. The only thing he could feel as he lay dying beneath the Wall in the midst of all the surrounding chaos and mutiny, was the cold.

Jon had heard the many names of death in his short years of six and ten. The many faced god of the faceless assassins from the city of Bravos. The Stranger of the Seven Pointed Star that the Lady Catelyn had always read to her children, never Jon. The Great Other as it would be told by the red witch Melisandre of Asshai, who would be fated to shroud the world in an eternal night where only the dead would walk. The night is dark and full of terrors, Jon Snow, the Red Priestess had warned.

But in the end it was none of those who Jon faced. Ygritte was right, he really had known nothing. In the end only nothing would come in the face of death. That was the last truth Jon and come to realize.

Cold and empty. Devoid of feeling and life.

The words came to him in the void. Emotionless and without meaning.

Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.

It was the oath that all brothers of the Night's Watch swore once they took the Black. It was a duty sworn by many people who came from different worlds. Their pasts no longer mattered for their worlds were at an end when they donned their black cloaks. It was their new beginnings as well as an end to their old lives.

And Jon Snow had taken that oath to heart. Except for when I had lain with Ygritte. He may have broken it on chance occasions but he always held the Watch first above all else. And then he had died for it. Been murdered by his own sworn brothers.

Wick, Bowen Marsh…

Night gathers, and now my watch begins.

White mist broke through the endless night. He stumbled through soft snow. I'm tired, Jon thought. I'm tired and I just want to go home.

Home. Back to Winterfell before their pack had split. "The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," his father had often told his children. And how Jon wished he had listened, how they all had just listened. Even his father should have listened to his own wisdom.

Lord Eddard Stark had left Winterfell for Kingslanding to be named Hand of The King by his best friend Robert of the house Baratheon, King of the Seven Kingdoms. Kingslanding was a viper's nest with lion's prowling over their rocks. And it was the lion's who had taken Lord Stark's head from his shoulders.

Jon remembered the letter. Treason, the lion's had stated. Jon knew his father well. And Lord Eddard Stark would never have committed treason against his best friend. Until Stannis Baratheon's letter had arrived claiming that the crowned children were not of the King's own blood. Bastards born of lion laying incest. Like the Taragaryan Kings of old.

His brother Robb Stark, who had called the banners and declared himself King in the North in response to their father's murder. His brother Robb who had always treated him kindly even for being a lowly bastard. Betrayed by his own sworn lords at the Twins by the Boltons and the Frey's. The rumors Jon had heard…

Sewn his wolf's head…

Jon had been in a rage. But the dead had no use for rage.

Lord Eddard Stark's wife and Robb's mother Lady Catelyn Stark had also been present at the massacre of the Twins. Attending her younger brother's wedding at the ancient castle. Despite the harsh manner the Lady of Winterfell had always shown Jon. Jon was saddened with her demise. She might not have been his mother, but she had been his siblings mother. His father's wife.

Little Bran and Rickon Stark, killed by Theon Turncloak. Their bodies hung from the walls of Winterfell he had heard. Only for Jon to hear later from his black brother in arms Samwell Tarly that his younger brother Bran still lived beyond the Wall. Mayhaps there was a chance that little baby Rickon lived too? No, for only the dead and the dying roamed beyond the Wall in the far north. Whatever Samwell had seen, it had been many moons since.

His sister Sansa Stark had been held by the lion's as a hostage. Little Sansa, always with her head in the stories and songs of great and chivalrous knights. Only to disappear after the lion's bastard King had been poisoned at his own wedding. She was more likely than not dead or worse.

And his littlest sister, Arya… Stick them with the pointy end.

In the hands of a butcher in human skin. Lord Roose Bolton's bastard Ramsay Snow. The things Jon had heard about the bastard of Bolton. The terrible crimes that were going unpunished. And he had his little sister.

She wouldn't last long. She was fierce from his memories. A wild thing that could never be tamed not even by her lady mother. If she wasn't already dead, she would be soon. Dead and worse…

Jon fell forward landing onto the old stonework floor. He knew this floor, this place. I'm home.

Jon pushed himself forward and went deeper and deeper into the dark crypts beneath Winterfell.

Was this where he belonged now that he too was dead?

The first Stark he passed had been his grandfather Rickard Stark. Then his Uncle Brandon Stark. Both who had been killed under the Mad King down in Kingslanding. Why couldn't his father had learned from them?

Jon stared sorrowfully at the stone kings of winter. Your line is dead, he wanted to tell them. The Starks are gone.

He tripped in the darkness. Catching himself at the base of yet another stone statue. Looking up Jon recognized this one too.

The statue was of a different figure than the Lord's of Winterfell. This one was slender, bore curves and was dressed like a lady. My Aunt Lyanna. Yet another sad tale of the Stark's family tree. The statue was weeping.

He knew she was weeping because of him. Because he was not her real family. He was a bastard son and a Snow. Not a Stark. "You may not have my name, but you have my blood," his father had told him.

He quickly moved on from the statue. He needn't remind her of her brother's shame any longer.

He and Robb had liked to explore this place in their youth. We never should have left, Jon lamented thinking on the past. We should have never have left Winterfell.

"LEAVE!" one of the statues shouted at him.

It was just like his dreams.

"LEAVE!" another had shouted leaving his pedestal, stone longsword in hand.

"Stick them with the pointy end," Jon had told his little sister.

He reached for Longclaw but it was not on his hip. Where was it? The old bear had gifted him that sword. It was Valyrian Steel. He needed his sword!

"HALF-BLOOD!" his Uncle Brandon shouted, swinging a stone carving of Ice. Ice had been the Stark's family sword passed down from generation to generation. A Valyrian Steel greatsword for each Lord of Winterfell, and the ancient Kings of Winter. He wanted it. He had always wanted it. Ice, Winterfell, the Stark name. He had always wanted it.

But he was a Snow, and he had no place here with the Stark's.

Jon ducked beneath the swinging stone and ran. He tripped out of the crypts and into the snow. The godswood, he told himself. I'll shelter beneath the old God's.

Jon kicked up snow and gasped from the pain. His chest was warm and wet with slick red. He reached and his hand came up with blood. My blood, Jon realized.

And there he was standing in the courtyard of Castle Black beneath the great wall of ice that reached high into the endless night.

He saw steel glinting in the corner of his eye. "Wick, put that knife away! You'll frighten him!"

Wick Whittlestick did as his Lord Commander had commanded and sheathed his blade.

Wun Wun the giant was calming as well as the rest of the men at arms.

Bowen Marsh led Jon away. "This here," he told Jon. Bowen Marsh removed Jon's Lord Commander's cloak and threw it over his own shoulders. He pulled Jon along to where the snow had been piling up atop the ice cells. Bowen shoved Jon down into the cold snow. "This is your place, Snow."

It shall not end, until my death...

Something was wrong. When Jon Snow opened his eyes he was no longer at Castle Black. The Wall was no longer in sight either. The only thing Jon recognized was the snow he lay in.

Recent memories came to him little by little of Ghost and his hunt.

At the thought of his Direwolf, Jon felt a jostling under his arm. There a massive head covered in white fur pushing his snout against Jon's side.

"I'm here boy," Jon consoled whilst giving the direwolf a head rub. "Where ever, here is?"

They were in an open clearing. Filled with snow. A forest surrounded them until it reached a drop off behind them. Whether they were on a hill or a cliffside was yet to be determined. If they were beyond the Wall then they would have to move fast. Jon tilted his head back to get a good look at the sky.

Maybe if he checked the positioning of the stars...

Something was terribly wrong. His Stark grey eyes widened at the sight above them. It was not the moon in it's full that greeted him. The moon was broken, shattered like Rheagar Targaryan's ruby breastplate when met with Robert Baratheon's unrelenting warhammer.

"What sorcery is this?," he asked the moon.

For the Watch…

Jon lurched forwards. His hands searching his chest for the painful open and bleeding wounds that were no longer there. His breathing was sharp and hitched. It was as if he forgot how to breathe. He coughed once and then once again in his frightful fit. He was choking but it wasn't on his own blood. It was the lack of air in his body.

To his side, Ghost was showing his concern. Each whining howl was sharper than the last. It pained Jon to hear his friend cry in such a matter.

Finally after what seemed like an eternal moment, Jon's breathing evened out. They killed me, he realized. They were my men… my sworn brothers and they killed me. It was a haunting thought that Jon was struggling to come to terms with. They killed me and for what?

Jon blinked the tears away. Why was living such a chore? All of his life had been nothing but pain and betrayal.

Bastard!

Kill the boy, Jon Snow.

Jon couldn't hold himself together any longer. He grabbed onto Ghost and pulled him close. And he cried. Cried for his dead father and his dead siblings, for Ygritte and the Giants, for Samwell and their friends, for his men and the Freefolk, and for his little sister Arya trapped at Winterfell with that bastard.

Ramsay Bolton, Trueborn Lord Of Winterfell.

Jon and Ghost howled into the night sky as the snows began to fall around them.

Jon only stopped when he could howl no longer. When his throat was sore from the strained mourning that had overcome him.

For he was dead. And that was the truth of it.

Jon felt for his own beating heart. No, I have been stabbed in the heart. Yet, my heart beats still? I am alive?

Jon tried to flex his sword hand. The burned fingers were stiff and unyielding. He had been warned to keep moving his fingers. He had been warned. And when he needed his sword most, he had been killed for it.

Jon reached down his side and found Longclaw still in its sheath.

Had it all been a dream? Jon wondered as he stared out into the dark of the night. No, at least not all of it. For his fingers were still burned from the night he had saved the Old Bear Mormont. And he still had Longclaw, it was the last gift he had received from the Old Bear before the ranging. Before the Old Bear was killed on that very same ranging. And in his death a new Lord Commander was required. And so the sworn brothers of the Night's Watch chose their Lord Snow. And they killed me all the same.

Jon searched beneath his leathers and froze when he came across them. There were many in number crossing over one another around his heart. The scars were there. So it wasn't a dream.

They killed me.

They'll kill each other now. When the Freefolk catch on that I've been murdered, they'll do the Black Brother's in kind, Jon realized. Good, Jon thought to himself bitterly.

With the Lord Commander dead and gone the Wall would fall under massive panic. When the FreeFolk learned it was the Night's Watch who had killed their own Commander, the Freefolk would be outraged. And the kings… no. King Stannis had fallen in the battle for Winterfell according to the Bastard of Bolton. The Queensmen would join the fight no doubt, jumping at the chance to glory of striking down the savages who attacked the Night's Watch.

Red. Everything was red…

Jon took his head in hand as he felt the memories come from his wolf.

The fires. The Red Priestess Melisandre of Ashai. The Queen Selyse. The broken and cobbled ruin that was Castle Black. The chaos. Ghost's own pained howls.

That damned witch, she had burned Ghost alive. Others take her!

Jon rose to his feet with the help of Ghost.

Where was he? He needed to get back to the Wall, to Castle Black. The Others and their army of dead men were on the march south. Without his leadership the Wall would fall. And the world with it…

Had he failed the world? Condemned it to die at the hands of the Others? It was in his nature he supposed. If Lady Catelyn had taught him anything, it was that Bastards were traitorous in nature. He should have known. Once born a bastard, always a bastard. He should have known his place. He should have never become Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. What had he been thinking? Fooling himself into believing that he could have saved them all, saved the world from the Others…

No damn it. Jon rubbed furiously at his eyes. No matter what happened, no matter where he was… he had to get back. He just knew he had to get back. He just didn't know how.

When the Freefolk had first attacked the Wall, it was him that rose to the call. No one else took Command. It was Jon Snow who had beaten back the Freefolk that night. It had been Jon Snow who had made to treat with Mance Rayder the King-Beyond-The-Wall in Mance's own camp by himself. It was he who had been elected as the Lord Commander.

Jon shuffled forward through the snow towards the woods with Ghost at his side. The great white wolf was the size of a pony by now.

A wolf howled in the distance. Jon searched for the beast in the light of the moon. Snow covered everything in Jon's sight, littering the darkness with the occasional sparkle. Even someone such as he could see in this lighting. It reminded Jon of a summer snow, wandering through the Godswood in the dead of night. Praying beneath the old gods for the Lady to accept him. Those had been a boy's hopes.

Growing up along the Wall fighting back the fabled Others and legions of barbaric Wildings had been a boy's dream. The world was not meant for a boy's whims. His little brother Bran who had wanted to become a knight had learned this much. It had taken Jon even longer still.

"You know nothing, Jon Snow," Ygritte's ghost whispered in his ear.

And right you are, Ygritte.

Ghost came to a full stop beside him. His hairs raised and his teeth bared. The direwolf's eyes shined red in the dark.

Jon rubbed a gloved hand over Ghost's fur lined neck. "Something the matter, boy?" Jon asked. When Ghost only growled, Jon flexed his sword hand.

The second howl caused Jon to stumble back a pace. This one had come from behind them. A good ways distance to be sure. But this did not bide well with the Lord Commander.

A third call forced Jon to tear his gaze away to the right. Over there! The tree line! Jon's keen eyes picked up on the new figures approaching from the darkness. There must be dozens of them! Jon glanced all around the clearing. Watching shapes move behind the trees. No, hundreds.

Ghost was positioned to Jon's right. Their backs to the cliffside. Ghost was readying to pounce the first contender.

Then they came. And Jon knew something was very wrong. The wolves came shambling out of the trees on two legs. Like men. The forms were leaning over themselves. Front claws raised like arms with long thick black daggers in place of paws. The wolf's heads were snarling, angry and hateful. Red eyes not too dissimilar to Ghost's own watched him a hundred times over.

Then they all began to howl.

Jon's sword hand flexed over Longclaw in its sheath. He thought back to the last time he needed it most. For the watch…

Jon pulled the blade up in front of him. He took a defensive stance, one he had honed and perfected beneath the harsh training of Ser Aliser Thorne. Longclaw's sharp edge caught the broken moon's bright gaze. The legendary steel's dark ripples appeared to shift in the light.

Nothing holds an edge like Valyrian Steel.

These were no wolves they were facing down. These were Otherworldly monsters come down from the land of always winter. Jon remembered the tales spoken by Old Nan back in Winterfell.

Grumpkins and Snarks and all the rest, Jon cursed. I'll take you all!

The wolf monsters must have heard his thoughts. Because one after another they came for him across the clearing, bearing down on all four paws to increase their speed.

The first made to lunge at him, ignoring Ghost completely. It was the monster's last mistake as Ghost met the creature in the air, tearing its throat out.

The second to jump at Jon was swiftly cut in half like the Lord Commander was carving cheese. Jon thought nothing of it as Valyrian Steel was sharp.

Another came bearing down on him from the side. Jon stepped out of danger and swung at the monster's passing form. The beast lost it's head.

To his right Ghost was making short work of every wolf monster. They are ignoring him, Jon wondered. Why?

Jon cut down a third and then a fourth easily enough. The fifth did not leap at him. This one stood tall on its hind legs and Jon felt the fear in his blood. It was there before. But now it was more noticeable. The monster was big, tall as a bear even.

Jon took the offensive and gutted the thing. Black fur lined paws swept over his head and missed as Jon ducked into the cut. Forcing the blade further into the monster.

He was taking too long with this one. As he felt another monster tackle him from behind. The blade was in the monster to the hilt now. Jon rolled off the monster and watched as it was crushed by one of his brothers. Did monsters even have brothers?"You know nothing, Jon Snow," Ygritte's memory mocked him.

My sword! Jon cursed and couldn't dwell further on his plight as a wolf monster came from his side. This monster did not miss.

Jon felt the monstrous claws rake into his clothes but he didn't feel the cut. Must be the cold, he rationalized. But it wasn't all that cold out. In fact, if he was beyond the Wall it should have been much colder than this.

Jon didn't think as his closed fist knocked into the wolfish head. The blow was a good one followed up by a stronger one still. Yet the monster did not give ground. It growled instead and opened it's large maw to have itself some dinner when a loud crack echoed throughout the clearing.

Something small tore it's way through the monster's face and Jon watched in shock as the thing toppled backwards, dead.

Jon took a moment to gather himself. Another crack shot through the pack of swarming monsters. Jon took stock of his surroundings. Several monstrous corpses lay about him, one of which held Longclaw as a makeshift sheath. Jon stumbled over the body of a monster and landed in the snow. More cracks and the occasional boom was heard in between the howling and growling of monsters. Ghost was in there too. Fighting, just like he should be.

Jon shoved himself forward and yanked Longclaw free from the dying monster. The thing made a swing at Jon's chest. Jon would have cut it's arm off as a counter if only he hadn't been tired. His counter was lazy and slow. And the monster's swing was faster. Claws ripped into his Lord Commander's hard boiled armor and again Jon never felt the claws that were gutting him.

He hadn't felt every knife the traitors had offered either. After a while his body had grown numb to their attacks. Was this the same? Was he going to die here? Was he dying already? Again?

Someone was shouting through the fighting.

Jon saw red dashing through the creatures left and right.

Thunder roared in the distance.

Jon's head was pounding and his blood was up. Jon raised Longclaw and charged at the remaining pack of monster's.

Something else, no. Someone else has their attention. Someone is fighting with me, Jon risked to hope. Wildling or Man of the Night's Watch?

The shouts were higher than any man's voice. A girl. A girl is here, and fighting. Jon thought of his little sister Arya and cleaved through the nearest monster. Cutting from shoulder to thigh.

The Red Priestess Melisandre had believed in Arya's escape from Winterfell and from the Bastard of Bolton. Jon had lost hope when it had been Lady Alys Karstark and not his youngest sister to ride through the gates at Castle Black. Finally after so long the two would be reunited. If the monsters didn't get to her first...

Jon spun and caught another in the middle. Jon finished the motion carrying the blade through dark flesh.

Stick them with the pointy end...

The three of them fought and hard did they fight. After felling a couple more of the beasts Jon lost himself in the heat of combat. Swing after swing. Stab after stab. Jon disarmed, maimed, hamstrung, beheaded, and crippled monster after monster.

His blood was rushing hotter than he could remember. His temper giving him the strength to continue on into the night. Anger came easy to him. Living a Bastard's life was not an easy one. It was full of harsh words, harsh punishments, distrust, sorrow, and betrayal.

He thought back to every time Lady Catelyn had been unfair in her treatment of Jon. How suddenly his younger sister Sansa stopped playing with him and began calling him, "Bastard." How Robb had looked him in the eyes after losing a spare in front of his Lady mother, "you will never be Lord Of Winterfell." He remembered Ser Aliser Thorne's cruel nature. He howled at Ygritte's corpse after the Wildings had attacked Castle Black. He bared his teeth at himself for rejecting King Stannis's offer, "I would name you Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell." And he growled when he felt the blades of his sworn brothers turn on him, killing him.

Jon did not falter. Could not falter. A rage unlike any he had ever felt took him hostage and held firm. He wanted blood. And by the gods Old and New, by the Red God and the Cold Other, he would have it on this night.

The hatred only did leave Jon Snow when he was out of monsters to slay. Jon tumbled over, feeling dizzy and sleep came easy.